Billow and Swell
by Black Goddess
Summary: Spoilers for film 3. Elizabeth's POV. A life in waiting.


**Billow and Swell**

By the Black Goddess

_Disclaimer_ - PotC is not mine, I make no money and am just doing this for...well, in the light of this fic, perhaps 'fun' isn't the right word.

_Rating_ - Gen.

Spoilers for the third film.

Angst. Elizabeth's POV. Time passes, you know, but not for everyone. Thanks to Lycoris for beta.

Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.

At first, she tried not to think about it, find other things to do. She tried to settle down, but the sea was in her blood now, rushing through her veins and though she was wed, she didn't have any papers to prove the fact and so Elizabeth Turner once again (because she'd been Turner to Barbossa once before to save Will, back on her maiden voyage) took to the seas. Talisman burnt, she was no longer a pirate king but her father's name let her acquire a ship and a crew, and she found out just how hard it was to captain a vessel. Ten years at sea as an honourable trader with disreputable friends, and she made it to land for her day with Will. Sunrise to sunset, touching and kissing and wrapping themselves so tightly together that she could pretend just for a moment that they would never be parted, that this was how it was really supposed to be.

"I wouldn't mind if you didn't wait," he whispered at some point. "You should live while you're alive," because she had grown ten years older and he had not aged. She drew back and looked at him.

"I took you for better, for worse, in sickness and in health," she reminded him.

"Until death do us part," Will said softly. "Elizabeth…"

"Death has not parted us," she said firmly. "Nor will it, for some time to come. I love you, and I will never love anyone else." Will said nothing, but yielded to her kiss, her touch, and he did not mention it again.

One day, and that day flew past.

Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.

She found that this time, she could not keep busy. The sea had brought Will back to her, and the sea had taken him away again, and Elizabeth trusted her first mate so she took to her bed and left the ship in his hands.

The sea had brought Will back to her and it had taken him away, but it had not taken everything away. It took her some time to realise that the exhaustion and nausea had a physical cause, and weren't just the backlash from ten years of anticipation for a day that had come and gone. When she realised, however, she knew that this time her attempt to settle down would be more successful. She didn't sell the ship, but she left it in the capable hands of the first mate and bought herself a little house on Grenada. She had considered Europe, even once during a long, sleepless night considered England, but those places were long ago and dreamlike.

She tried to make a home for the baby, but she hadn't the faintest clue how to go about it. She'd kept her father's house for him as soon as she was an age to do so, of course, but this little house with its sea view was hers, and Elizabeth Swann was gone. Elizabeth Turner had been a pirate, she had been pirate king, she was the wife of William Turner, the captain of the Flying Dutchman. Possibly more importantly, she was the captain of a trading vessel, and didn't have the energy to attempt to be respectable. With that in mind, she took herself down to the slums, pregnant and swollen and so tired, and went round all the houses until she found a woman she liked who agreed to come along and work for her.

Sevatheda turned out to be just what Elizabeth had hoped for. She had really been intended to help only with the confinement, but when the baby lay screaming in her arms, Sevatheda looked at him and said,

"That one will go to sea," and Elizabeth nodded, suddenly wishing that she'd never left dry land. So Sevatheda stayed, and the two became fast but unlikely friends. Elizabeth had no idea what to do with an infant, and she found it hard. He wasn't Will, she didn't know what Will would have wanted her to do and now the years couldn't just slide by, there was an obvious marker of time passing. Her boy would be nearly 10 before he ever met his father. She named him James in a fit of pique, after the only one of her suitors not to fear death, but spent most of her time looking at him, trying to see Will in him. She wasn't sure which hurt her the most, the times when she could or the times when she couldn't.

She found herself getting drawn into the life of the island. There was schooling to consider, and somehow, Elizabeth found herself building a life. When she had pictured her future, teaching children had never crossed her mind but she seemed to be the best suited to it, even if most of the things that she had learned had never come from any book.

The second decade was the hardest. With one baby growing older, she found the desire for another almost too strong to resist. At sea, the temptation to take a lover had been subsumed; as captain she knew that getting involved with a member of the crew would undermine her position and when every slap of the waves reminded her of Will it was easier to close her eyes, but now, on land, it was different. Many women of her age had died in childbirth, and Elizabeth was a beautiful woman. Once again she had suitors, men with children of their own who wanted a wife almost as much as they wanted a mother for their children.

"I have a husband at sea," she told them all, but now that she could not only feel the time passing but watch it too, somehow that wasn't as comforting.

She kept Will's heart in its box under her bed, and sometimes at night she fancied that she could hear it beating, that she could feel it beating next to her. She tried not to open the box, or keep it in the bed with her, but it was hard.

When The Day finally drew near, she had to make plans. Will would want to see the boy, of course, but she wanted Will to herself and couldn't bear to share him. In the end, she asked Sevatheda to come at noon and take the boy for the rest of the day, and she agreed with sad eyes.

Will was pleased to see Jimmy, though the child was shy and would hardly speak, but there were shadows in his eyes now when he looked at her. In her forties, probably too old to bear another child, and she couldn't help looking at him with pain in her eyes, not for his continued youth but for his absence.

This time he brought bad news, too. He had ferried Jack's soul across the depths, and despite his reassurance that Jack was safe on the other side and his recounting of some outrageous tales that Jack had told him on the crossing, she couldn't keep the tears or the anger from her eyes.

Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.

Elizabeth knew that this would probably be the last time she saw him. In her fifties now, weak and worn down by years of storms and the strain of existence in a tropical climate. Jimmy had gone to sea two years before, on her own ship (though by this time she owned two) and his absence left a hole in her life that teaching other people's children couldn't fill. He had grown up to look very much like his father.

Will's face was full of love and pain, and she knew hers must be the same. She didn't tell him what she knew, and if he knew, he didn't tell her. They clung together as they had clung the first day, the second and then the third. Four days. She wanted to rage against a world that gave with one hand to take away double with the other, but Elizabeth had learned to control her rage. Being angry just made her tired, and without Will to hold her at night, she was afraid that one day she wouldn't be able to get up.

Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.

When her son came home for the first time, Elizabeth boarded the ship. She left the little house without a backward glance, though the island was sorry to see her leave, as teachers were hard to find.

She spent two years at sea, longer than she'd expected, and one day, she woke up to find herself floating.

"The locker," she said out loud, looking around at Will's world. She looked down at herself, bones barely contained in old skin, and wished that she was young again.

'Across the sea of souls, surely it's only fair, if I want it?' she thought, but maybe she didn't want it enough or maybe it was just that life had one last cruel trick to play. When Will saw her, he cried, even as he pulled her onto the boat and set the most leisurely course he could.

"Your son has your heart," she told him. "I kept it with me always, and he knows to keep it safe." Will nodded, but he looked distant. She was restless now, forever crossing to the bow and staring out over the water. Will tried to distract her and she wanted to be distracted, she really, really did, but she couldn't help the feeling, the pull and the yearning and in the end, Will delivered her to the other side. He could not watch her leave, and she did not look back.

The End.


End file.
